The One He Should Have Saved
by Goldfish-Con-Carne
Summary: While exploring an uninhabited planet, the team comes across someone Ronon thought he'd never get the chance to save, a secret he's kept all this time. Now it may be too late to fix the mistake he made ten years ago, protecting strangers instead of her.
1. A New Runner

((Just a brief note: SGA is not mine. And nor is Ronon Dex. I am more upset about one of these things than the other and I'll let you decide which. Here's a hint: rippling manliness. Also, this story is very AU, but hopefully it fits in all right and doesn't require that you suspend too much belief. I'm not 100% certain where this would fall in the timeline, considering I've kind of played with the timeline a lot. Basically, Elizabeth Weir is still in control of Atlantis, but Teyla has had her baby which may, or may not, only ever be mentioned once. If it helps, I started writing this shortly after watching (well, rewatching, but it's been a while) season 4. From here on out I'll put any notes at the bottom of the chapter save for the disclaimer and any notes about changes in the timeline you may need to know about. Sorry about any sciency terms I may get wrong. Also, will someone define the word brief for me?))

"I really hate this planet."

Sheppard sighed, not bothering to try and conceal the noise. They had been on the planet for less than ten minutes. The gate was still visible between the trees behind them. "You say that about every planet, Rodney. I'm sorry that we don't get to visit beach planets with those busty blondes you like so much."

"I never said-"

"You did though." Rodney didn't try to fight with Ronon. That was a fight he automatically lost.

"All I'm saying is that dark, scary planets are far from my favorite."

"I think that we are all very well aware of that fact, Dr. McKay" Even when it was directed at him, Rodney had to admire the way Teyla let just the tiniest bit of condescending sarcasm into her voice. He couldn't be sure that she had meant it that way, though he had a pretty good guess.

"I don't see why-"

Rodney broke off when Sheppard raised his fist, looking around him in a desperate search for Wraith. Years in the field had trained Rodney well and he was one of the first to raise his gun.

"Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

Now that he had pointed it out, the entire team could hear the soft crunch of rapid footsteps ahead of them.

"Wraith?" Teyla whispered, taking several steps toward the noise.

"No, they're alone. And the footsteps are too soft." Sheppard didn't even slow down. He had seen a flash of dark brown hair between the trees ahead of them. He turned the corner of the path just as she did, and they collided. She had been running, her breathing hard and her cheeks pink. The look in her eyes wasn't panic, but there was a sense of fear there and the tired, worn out look of someone who had had a particularly long, hard life. She couldn't have been more than seventeen.

The girl pushed off of Sheppard, leaping backwards several feet. She landed with a knife drawn in one hand, but made no move to use it. Instead she took a step to the side, trying to get around him. He reached for her arm and grabbed it just as she stopped short of her own accord.

"Impossible," her eyes were wide, the word so quiet Sheppard couldn't be sure he had heard it. He followed her line of sight and found Ronon on the other end. his eyes lacked the recognition that her's seemed to hold. There was a tense moment of silent. Sheppard had his gun trained on the girl. Teyla was confused, also with her gun up but still more at ease than the three men. McKay's gun also pointed in her general direction, though he was unprepared to fire should the need arise, and Ronon, the one to always shoot first and ask questions later, held his arm at a stiff angle, only half raised and pointing at a tree about six feet to the right of her. Their shock was understandable; the planet they were on, P7X-575, was uninhabited There was no reason for her being there. (Hell, there was no reason for them to be there, either, but McKay's girlfriend had been sure that a tree that grew there was the cure for leukemia, an opportunity they couldn't pass up.)

"You don't recognize me." It wasn't a question. Ronon shook his head, confirming her suspicions. "Of course not," she continued, "It's been what, 10 years? Maybe seven..." She thought for a moment. "How old do I look to you?" Ronon didn't answer. She turned to Sheppard, "How old do I look to you?" She enunciated each word as if she was speaking to a child. He was mildly offended.

"16? 17? 18, tops." Sheppard was having a hard time accepting the bizarre nature of the situation he was facing.

"So ten years, plus the eight, minus four, and then add six..." She continued muttering to herself, using the fingers on her free hand to do the math. "I should be 22. Wow. I'm actually [i]younger[/i]. I did not expect that." She seemed shocked, momentarily forgetting she was surrounded by four people with their guns more or less still aimed at her.

"What do you-" The familiar and much loathed sound of a wraith dart echoed above their heads. She checked her watch, swore, then turned her attention back to the team."

"You have to leave this planet. Now."

"I agree, so how about the five of us-"

"No. You need to leave. Go somewhere. Anywhere. And I need to go somewhere else."

"If you come with us, we can protect you." Sheppard had a bad feeling about where this was going, about why the wraith were there. She certainly didn't seem like a wraith worshiper. And the planet was devoid of human life. That really only left one option that he knew of.

"No. I can't be protected. I have to keep running and you need to leave." Her voice had turned cold, her words directed almost solely at Ronon.

"You're a runner." Also not a question.

"I am."

"You are a bit young to be a runner, are you not?"

"No. As much as I would like to stand around and explain-"

The wraith dart was preparing to make another pass.

"Right. Dial P9X-205. We're all going through." Sheppard didn't allow the girl to argue, using the arm he still grasped to pull her towards the gate.

"You don't understand," she tried to pull against him, but with the knife held in her captured hand there was little she could do. "Anywhere I go-"

"We know about runners." They were only a few yards from the gate, the wormhole already active.

"It's different. Any civilization that I go to is called. Every single last person-"

"Well, it's a good thing P9X is uninhabited." She went with him willingly then.

Moments after stepping through the gate she realized that he had been lying.

"We'll be safe here for a few minutes, anyway." The journey through the gate had made Sheppard loosen his grasp, and she pulled away easily.

"You don't get it!" The anger and bitterness in her voice shocked John. "It doesn't matter how long I stay here, a few minutes or a few hours. They will come and take everyone. You have doomed every human on this planet to death."

"What are you talking about?" Ronon seemed to be the only one taking her seriously, even though the intense emotion in her voice was very clear.

She sighed, and then dropped onto a rock a few feet behind her. The girl sheathed her knife in her boot and reached into the bag she carried on her back for a metal bottle. She drank from it and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand with another sigh.

"You're Ronon Dex, aren't you?"

"I am." Ronon had put his weapon away as she had put away hers.

"You should know that none of us blame you."

"Who doesn't blame me for what?"

"The other runners. You were the first person to ever escape that life. When you did they captured as many of us as they could, and cut out the trackers."

"They removed them?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"As far as I can tell, they were worried about us doing what you did, going somewhere and getting it cut out and then we'd be safe. They developed a new tracker, one that ties itself into the brain stem and down the spine. It can't be removed, not without death."

There was a flash of guilt in Ronon's eyes, but he hid it well. "And they did this to everyone?" There was a moment's hesitation before she nodded, and he sensed that she wasn't being completely honest with him. He didn't push it.

"And now they're calling entire planets?" Sheppard was the only one that hadn't completely lowered his weapon.

"Yes."

"And that goes for everyone?"

She met and held Ronon's eyes as she nodded, and he could see the lie there, but couldn't decipher what it meant.

Standing and stretching as if she had been sitting down for hours, the girl threw her bottle back in her bag. "You brought me here, these people are your problem." She checked her watch, "It's been a slow day, but we're still close to Ka'ai. You probably have about four hours until the hive ship gets here." She reshouldered her bag and went to the DHD, dialing an address none of them recognized. No one made a move to stop her.

"We have excellent doctors."

She sighed and bent over the DHD, but John, able to see her profile, knew that the faint glimmer of hope was enough to make her hesitate at least. "If you can figure out a way to remove some wraith tech from where it's wrapped around my spine, then I'm all ears. This planet," here she gestured to the DHD, "I go there about once every four days. It's the closest thing I have to a home. If you need to find me, you can do it here." With that she turned and sprinted towards the gate, disappearing through it before they could stop her. Ronon burned the symbols lit up on the DHD into his mind, memorizing them.

There was a moment of silence within the team before Sheppard spoke. "If she's right, and the wraith are going to call this entire planet, we need to get these people out of here."

"Agreed." Teyla began towards the village. It was one of the many planets her people had traded with and she knew she could explain the situation to them and get them off world, at least for a little while.

_  
((This feels a bit impersonal to me... does it feel impersonal to you? First chapters always feel impersonal and distant to me... Anyway, I hope you enjoy the story. I think it's gonna be a fun time. If you have theories about anything, feel free to post them in the reviews, that makes it more fun for me. And sometimes I get ideas from them, though of course I'll credit you if that's the case. If you do have any ideas you want me to use, either leave it in a review or PM me. Can you PM someone on here? I'll check later. And please, let me know if I suck so I can get a new day job. XD))


	2. Kielle

((If I owned SGA, there would be more red heads and Ronon would follow a religion that required it's worshipers to be shirtless. Always shirtless.))

Ronon sat alone in the cafeteria, a bowl of uneaten jello in front of him. He hadn't even picked up his spoon. That was where John found him the next morning. It had been two weeks since their encounter with the girl on P7X-575, and ever since something had been different with his best friend. Ronon had been even more quiet than usual and this wasn't the first time he had left him somewhere at night only to found he hadn't moved in the morning.

"Hey, buddy, you feelin' all right?"

"Of course." John's voice had snapped him out of whatever trance he had been in. He lifted his spoon and took a bite out of the jello, ignoring the face John was making.

"I don't know, Ronon, you've been weird ever since that girl on-"

"No I haven't." His words weren't meant to be a defense of his actions, they were meant to be the end of the conversation. John knew Ronon well enough to know that he would never open up about it on his own, but he also knew what it looked like when Ronon was bothered, and he had been very bothered ever since P7X-575.

"C'mon Ronon, I know you don't want to talk about it-"

"You're right, I don't." Ronon stood and turned from the table.

"Ronon! Sit down."

Slowly he turned back to Sheppard. "Is that an order?"

John weighed his options. If he made it an order, Ronon would be angry with him and they were supposed to spar later that day. He didn't even want to think about how sore he would be tomorrow if he made it an order. But he also knew that Ronon would leave if he could, and that he needed to find out what was bothering him.

"Yes. It is."

Ronon didn't even sigh as he sat back down. "What?"

"You've been weird ever since we met that girl on P7X. Why? What did she do or say that's bothered you this much?"

Ronon's shoulders slumped forward and John had to look away. He had never seen so much emotion on his friend's face, even after everything they had seen.

"Did I ever tell you..." Ronon stopped, then started again, "Can we go somewhere else?" More and more members of the expedition were filtering into the room, including a surprisingly wide awake Rodney McKay who had tried to catch Sheppard's eye when he came in.

"Of course, let's go." Sheppard and Ronon both pretended not to hear McKay when he called after them as they left.

Ten or fifteen minutes later they sat on the edge of the East Pier, both looking at the sunset, the smell of salt thick in the air. John waited, not wanting to push Ronon any further than he had. The water was very cold, and it wouldn't be the first time one of them had pushed the other in. They must have sat there for almost forty minutes before Ronon finally spoke

"I told you about Melena." His voice hadn't made the statement a question, but John still felt compelled to answer it.

"Yeah."

Ronon paused again, seeming to take a whole new direction with the conversation. "On your planet, when two people... enter into a serious relationship, they always get married, right?"

"Well, more or less," John didn't think that now was a good time for an in depth lesson on Earth culture.

"On Seteda two people rarely got married. It just... never became the normal thing to do. But they still had families."

John had a terrifying idea of where Ronon was headed with this.

"Comparing Seteda standards to Earth, Melena and I were as good as married. We had been for thirteen years." Another lengthy pause, and then the words came tumbling out quickly, one right after another. "We had a daughter. She was twelve when the wraith attacked and was taken early on, along with several other children. She had Melena's eyes. We tried to save her but there was nothing we could do, the wraith were coming too fast and there weren't even enough supplies to defend the planet and-" He broke off, but didn't wait for the obligatory 'it wasn't your fault' speech. "She would have been twenty two this year."

John took a deep breath, wanting to cry for his friend but knowing Ronon would see it as an insult. "And you think that was her."

For the first time Ronon looked at John. "She had Melena's eyes."

"All right then. We tell Keller to put a rush on trying to find a way to get that tracker out of her, and then we bring her to the city."

"You would do that?" It still surprised John how shocked Ronon always was when someone from Atlantis offered to do something for him.

"Of course. I'll do it right now." John stood, readjusted the bottom of his shirt, and turned toward the door. When he reached it he stopped, looking over his shoulder at Ronon. "What was her name?"

There was a slight pause before Ronon answered. "Kielle."

John nodded, then swiped his hand in front of the control panel to open the door. Ronon continued to sit on the East Pier until well after the sun had disappeared into the ocean.

((Honestly, I haven't decided if her name is pronounced KI-elle, Key-Elle, or Key-a-lay. What do you guys think? I'm leaning towards KI-elle... Also, I realized that because this is AU I could have brough Carsen in, and I love him, but Scottish accents are hard to write.))


	3. Wraith Tech

((Me: Hey guys, since I posted the last chapter, I actually bought the rights to Stargate Atlantis.

Metaphorical audience: Really? (For the sake of my ego, we'll pretend you're excited)

Me: No.))

* * *

Kielle stepped through the gate and stopped short on the other side. John, Ronon, Rodney, Teyla, and Keller were all scattered in front of the gate, John and Ronon sitting on a group of rocks to the left, while Rodney played what appeared to be a card game on his tablet ((It's solitaire)) and Teyla and Keller talked softly a little ways away. The group had looked up when the gate had become active and she made eye contact with each of them save for Ronon before lowering her weapon and taking a few steps forward. She stopped at the edge of the dirt that surrounded the gate, as if the grass was going to hurt her in some way. Shifting all of her weight onto her right foot, she broke the silence that no one seemed willing to address.

"Well?"

Keller looked to John before springing into action and approaching her. "I'm Dr. Keller," Kirelle took her hand and shook it once before letting go. Again she looked to John. Lucky for her, John knew how much Keller hated meeting new people and took over for her, coming to stand next to her.

"Before we can help you, Keller needs to know exactly what's going on with this transmitter. She needs to get some images." John started to go into more detail about what kind of images they needed, but Kirelle held one hand up, stopping him.

"I get it, what do you need me to do?" Her voice told John that she was humoring them, and it surprised him when it made him angry that that was the way she felt. He already knew she didn't think it was likely that they would be able to help her, but it seemed to him she had already given up hope. And, after seeing the way their previous interactions had ended and what it had done to Ronon, he was annoyed that she couldn't even be bothered to make eye contact with him. A part of him wanted to shake her and remind her that Ronon was her father, but a bigger part of him knew that that was a bad idea and neither she, nor Ronon, would appreciate it.

"You're going to have to sit down." This was what Keller was more comfortable with, telling patients what to do.

"All right, I think I can handle that." Kirelle moved from where she was standing to a rock that stuck a couple of feet out of the ground. She swiped at the dust that had settled over it as if she cared whether or not her pants got dirty. In truth, she couldn't say why she had done it.

"And you're going to have to remove your jacket." Kirelle shrugged the black fabric off of her shoulders, wincing as it slid along her forearm. When she pulled the jacket off and her forearm came into view the source of her discomfort became clear. A still-bloody cut ran about 4 inches from just below her elbow, curving with her arm. Keller looked concerned, though John knew that for a battle field injury it didn't look so bad.

"How did that happen?"

"Ran into some Adiyans a little while back, searching a planet for some supposed lost treasure. They thought that I was there to claim it for myself until the wraith showed up." There was a black humor to her tone of voice that made John surprisingly uncomfortable.

"And what happened to them?" From his voice, it was clear that Rodney was more worried about their own skin, rather than what had happened to a few aliens he had never met. Kirelle's silence answered his question.

Keller changed the subject, "All right, I'm going to take care of that first, and then I'm going to need to get these images." She moved to grab her bag from Teyla, reaching in for some of the more mundane medicine they had brought from Earth as well as the Ancient scanner and her tablet.

"It's fine, I promise you, nothing I can't take care of myself-"

"Kirelle." Rodney and John both had to smirk at Ronon's tone; he sounded very much like their own fathers when they were in trouble. Whether because she knew it wasn't worth the argument or because some part of her remembered similar scoldings from her childhood, Kirelle was silent, putting up no fight as the doctor disinfected and covered the wound. It was deep, and under better circumstances Keller might have fought for stitches, but she could see that Kirelle was growing impatient and knew that they couldn't stop her from walking away. If she did, and Keller never got the images of the transmitter, she wouldn't be able to figure out a way to at least shut it off.

She turned the Ancient scanner on and booted up the tablet, "Because I can't bring you back to the infirmary and get new images any time I need them, I'm going to need to be sure I can get everything. This might take a few minutes."

"All right, do what you need to do." Kirelle rested her right elbow on her knee, using it to prop up her chin. Keller began running the scanner back and forth across Kirelle's back, watching the tablet with an expression that went from curious, to confused, to concerned. Teyla, Rodney, and John began to grow concerned themselves, but Ronon hardly noticed. He had come to join Rodney and John standing only a few feet away from Keller and Kirelle, watching his daughter's face closer than he was watching Keller's. It certainly gave him less information about the situation. For her part, Kirelle was surprisingly relaxed. An awkwardness still hung in the air, an awkwardness she was sure wasn't going away any time soon, but the noise of the native birds overhead and the planet's constant, gentle wind calmed her, as always. Within moments she had begun to fall asleep, the past few days of almost non stop running catching up to her.

Unfortunately, just as she was beginning to truly sleep, Keller shut the scanner off, announcing "done" in a voice that, while not any louder than normal, still manage to jump Kirelle awake. The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes were Ronon's eyes. They held eye contact for the briefest moment before she looked away, half looking over her shoulder at the doctor.

"So I'm done here?"

"You are."

"And don't worry," John told her, "we'll leave this time so that you don't have to. Rodney, dial the gate." Kirelle couldn't keep the small smile from showing, even as she stood and stretched her back. She watched Rodney move to the DHD before turning back to John.

"That planet-"

"We got everyone off safely, no one was hurt and we won't make that same mistake again." John gave Keller a hard look that didn't go unnoticed by either Keller or Kirelle. Keller went to join Rodney by the DHD, whispering something in his ear. He began to slow down pressing the symbols.

"Good."

"Is there anything else we can do for you? Anything that you need?"

"No, I'm used to surviving alone, wouldn't know how to do it any other way." John nodded, knowing not to fight with her. The resemblances in personality between her and Ronon were incredible.

"All right. If there becomes something-"

"There won't." He held up his hands, surrendering to her side of the argument. Motioning to Teyla he went to join Rodney and Keller. Unable to stall dialing the gate without looking suspicious, they now stood talking emphatically about some science term or other. Sheppard and Teyla joined the debate, though neither had any idea what they were talking about. Kirelle stared after them, finding that easier than looking at her father.

"Kirelle-"

"Don't. Don't tell me that you're going to fix this or that everything's going to be all right." Her words came out weaker than she had meant, but when she finally did look at him her eyes blazed with all the emotion her voice didn't convey, "I've been alive for far too long, I already know that sometimes things don't work out, sometimes things go to shit and there is nothing to be done about it." She took a deep breath, and he waited, knowing she had more she wanted to say, "You know," she finally continued, "this planet used to be inhabited. About a hundred thousand people called this world home until I stumbled on the gate address on another planet. I was stupid then, didn't understand that the wraith really wanted to punish me." Her words were coming out faster and faster, a small part of her worried that if she didn't say what she wanted to say quickly she would choke up and wouldn't say it at all. "I came here, and as I was leaving they came and they took every single man, woman, and child that lived in this village. And then one of the wraith came to me, found where I was hiding and came not to kill me, but to tell me that every person on this planet, at least the ones in that village, were as good as dead. I was fourteen then, and that's what I have had to live with for all this time. So believe me when I say that I know better, I know that things aren't always fixable, and to pretend that they are is the biggest insult to the people that lived on this world."

Ronon looked down first this time, and then looked to the gate where the team was waiting before looking back into her eyes. "Then at least let me apologize."

She paled, but pretended to be unaffected, "Apologize for what?"

"Ten years ago. I should have saved you, I should have found a way-" He was shocked when she started laughing, and even more shocked when she looked at him with a forgiving smile on her face.

"I get it, there were other people that needed saving. Will I ever forgive you for leaving me to the wraith? No. But I will never forgive any Setedan that had the opportunity and didn't take it. It all comes back to what I already said, things aren't always fixable."

Ronon wasn't sure if she meant that it wasn't possible to fix the fact that she had been captured by the wraith, or if she meant that the relationship she had with Seteda and with him could never be repaired. He chose not to push it, "I could run with you." He offered, "Help you in any way I can. They don't need me back at Atlantis right now."

When she replied, her voice had turned cold again, "And you didn't think I needed you ten years ago." She took another deep breath, "No, you have a pretty good set up going, I'm not going to take that away. Go." She pulled her bag onto her back and headed into the trees, away from the gate. Ronon nodded to himself before going to join the team for their return to Atlantis.

* * *

((Don't ask me why, but it took everything in me not to call the human race the Kardashians. I have no idea... Can you spot the alliteration? I realize that the 'you didn't think I needed you ten years ago' line seems a little out of place, but it will be explained in the next couple of chapters. And YAY! I found the horizontal line button!))


	4. Cautious

((Whoo! Two chapters at once! I don't own SGA. If I did there would be more one night stands.)) ((That's not actually true, just more puns.))

* * *

John, Rodney, Teyla, and Ronon stood crowded around a display monitor in the infirmary. "All right, Doc, what am I looking at? What am I supposed to see?"

"Well, I've done some analysis on the pictures, and it seems that the tracking device is made out of the same material as the hive ships; part of it is organic - that's the part that has attached itself to her spinal cord, making it impossible to remove, and the other part is made out of some kind of metal."

"Impossible to remove?" Keller heard the defeat in Ronon's voice and prayed that her next words wouldn't completely kill him.

"As far as I can tell, in it's current state the device is impossible to remove. We would have to shut it off first. Unfortunately, shutting it off would almost certainly result in death. It's too ingrained in her spinal cord. If we had found her eight years ago, maybe. But now?"

Ronon nodded once, as if he accepted the information, but she knew there was no way he would just accept that his daughter would forever be tracked by the wraith.

"But you could potentially shut it down?"

"I could, well, Rodney could." Rodney took this as his cue.

"I've been playing with copies of the images myself and I believe that it would be a simple matter of hacking into the system and shutting it off. It seems that the power source as well as the programming would be kept here." He pointed to a particularly large dark spot on one of the images.

"So it's really just the death we have to worry about." The sarcasm in John's tone was definitely unmistakable.

Keller sighed, "If she didn't die, she would almost certainly be completely paralyzed."

John heaved a sigh, "All right, so we find a way around that." Almost out of habit, John, Keller, and Teyla all turned to look at Rodney.

"It's not that simple!"

"C'mon McKay, impossible goals are your thing. You'll figure out a way."

McKay sighed, looking down to his tablet. "All right, Jennifer, could we perhaps work on this over dinner? I'm starving."

"Yeah, let me just grab my tablet."

Kielle wandered the empty streets of Seteda for what must have been the hundredth time in almost as many months. Early on she had come here almost every day, now she was fortunate enough to only think of the planet once a month or so. Still, she always felt the need to visit after particularly bad days, whether it was because she got someone killed or because the wraith were hunting her harder than usual. Or, of course, her father reappearing after ten years.

Her footsteps echoed off the empty buildings, scattering rubble in front of her. She had stepped through the gate and hadn't stopped walking for almost an hour. Mostly she had been walking in circles around the blocks that surrounded the gate, kicking rocks and, on occasions, picking them up and throwing them at walls and windows in frustration.

Kielle was more like her mother than just her eyes, she also carried the same emotional intensity that Melena had. When she was young she actually liked it, it had set her apart and, in her eyes, it made her a good person like her mother. When the wraith had culled Seteda she realized that sometimes emotions were better left behind, but she hadn't been able to shake them. Even now she wanted to scream and cry and break everything within sight. She passed by the house she had grown up in for the eighth time, hesitating before going in.

Once, not too long ago, she had though about cleaning up the house, fixing it up. It would give her something to do, anyway. But then she had thought twice and realized that it would be a waste of time and energy. Still, she couldn't resist brushing at some of the dust and debris that covered every surface within the home. Only faint, quiet memories remained from her time in the house, and she turned each one over and over in her mind as she walked from one room to the other. The markings on the wall where she had colored once when she was six. Her mother had been angry and was about to clean it off when her father had come home. He had laughed and convinced Melena to leave it. In her bedroom on of her stuffed toys still laid on the floor, gray with dust. A bear that her uncle had brought back from a trading mission off world. A photo of Ronon, Melena, and Kielle at a lake not far from the city, smiling. It seemed that everything in the house was from before the wraith. Maybe that was on purpose. Melena had to deal with the victims every day in the hospital, and Ronon was constantly fighting, losing men to the wraith. Perhaps any other reminders of the wraith within their own home was too much for them. It certainly would have been too much for Kielle, had she been in their position.

She picked up the frame, wondering why she had never really noticed it before. Sure, for the most part she avoided the house, but she had still been inside her room multiple times, she should have noticed it. Carefully she pulled the photo out of the frame, leaving it on her empty bed and sliding it in between the pages of the only book she carried in her bag. Her watch beeped, signaling that she had been on the planet for three hours. She could have stayed longer, but she wanted to be safe. Where that desire came from she wasn't entirely sure. She usually took risks. There had been more than once when she was running through the gate as wraith were appearing around her, barely making it out alive. But now?

The only difference was that now, in a way, there was more of a reason for her to live. Sure, she doubted their ability to remove the tracker, but on the off chance that they could? She had had hobbies at one point in her life, maybe she could pick those up again, draw on a few more walls.

* * *

((For the record, I'm not trying to say that Ronon isn't emotional, just that his wife and daughter carry much more emotion than he does. Also, I was reading the authors note at the bottom of chapter three and realized that I don't remember why I had her say that he hadn't thought she needed him ten years ago... But I think I came up with something better... I thought about having it turn out that Ronon had put the picture there, knowing that she might go back to the house, but then I decided that that was a bit out of character for him. Anyone curious on what the book is? Here's a hint, it has absolutely no importance to the plot. And I did the outline kind of stuff out today and it's looking like there's going to be about a dozen chapters of this story, but if people are really interested I might continue writing along this same arc/write a sequel. Let me know what you guys want. Thanks for reading! Also, I've been pronouncing it like Ki-elle (kind of like kyle but with the stress on the second syllable), but you guys are free to pronounce it however you want, of course. ))


	5. In Which Ronon Gets Tricked!

((If I owned SGA there would be more dachshunds. And no, I'm not kidding. Also, this chapter might be a little confusing, let me know if it is, I'm trying to get all the aspects of their plan into the story without just being like "then they did this".))

* * *

"Hey, John!" He stopped and waited for Keller and Rodney as they jogged to catch up with him. John opened his mouth to ask her what was going on but she stopped him. "Not here," she led them to the nearest transporter, ushering them inside without choosing a location. "We think we might have an idea about removing the tracker from Kielle."

"Well, let's hear it."

"You're not going to like it." Rodney's face was grim, he wasn't even sure he liked it.

"And we're going to need to to get Ronon off world for a while. Because he'll like it even less than you do, but we honestly think it's the only way."

John nodded, "All right, just what exactly are you planning?"

Keller looked towards Rodney before she began talking, outlining the plan.

* * *

"Ronon! I am glad I ran into you." That was an understatement. Teyla felt like she had walked the entire city eight times looking for the man and she was relieved to finally find him.

"Hey Teyla, what do you need?"

"I have to make a trip to the mainland, one of my people wishes to speak to me. I was wondering if you would be willing to accompany me."

Ronon felt he had a pretty good idea what was going on; the team was tired of him moping and thought getting off world would do him some good. Maybe they were right. "Sure, just let me tell Delaney that I won't be able to spar with him."

Teyla smiled, "I am sure he will be very disappointed."

Ronon smiled at her use of sarcasm, turning back towards the sparring room to let the captain know.

* * *

Within moments after Ronon and Teyla were through the gate, John lowered a puddle jumper into the gate room, dialing the address of the planet Kielle so frequently visited. Hopefully they would not have to wait long. Teyla could not keep Ronon off world forever without arousing suspicion, and the story they had thought up for if he came back early was not a good one. John and Rodney had accepted that Ronon was probably going to hate them for a little while for going through with this both without his consent and without his knowledge, but they also knew that Ronon was, on occasion, his own worst enemy. He wouldn't listen to reason if it didn't line up exactly with his own opinions.

John switched the button on his radio, "Elizabeth, we're heading out."

"All right, good luck, John."

"Thanks, Sheppard out." He looked at the other three before nodding to himself once and disappearing through the gate. Elizabeth had tried to convince him that a second team should accompany Rodney, Keller and him, but he had convinced her they could handle it. A medical base had already been set up at a different planet, guaranteeing they would have the time to do what needed to be done. The gate shut down, and Elizabeth sighed.

"This is going to be risky."

Zelenka nodded, "You can say that again."

Elizabeth returned to her office, determined to focus on work even if she knew that would be near impossible. She had barely even approved the plan, and now that it was being put into action she was feeling even less comfortable with it.

* * *

John was not expecting the sight that greeted them when he went through the gate. He immediately cloaked, barely escaping the notice of several wraith darts not far away. Or at least, if they did notice him they had more important things they were worried about. "Dammit."

"You don't think she's still on the planet, do you?" Behind them the gate became active, but no one came through.

"Well, they're trying to stop someone from escaping."

"Damn." Rodney leaned forward, trying to get a better view of the ground below them. "We'll never find her from up here."

"And with the gate active we won't be able to get to the med site, either." John executed a few quick turns, the inertial dampeners doing their best to compensate as he avoided tree tops and wraith darts. He looked for a clearing that seemed save to land in.

"So then, what do we do now?" Keller's voice shook, it was obvious she wasn't used to being on the battlefield. She hadn't even been equipped with a gun. This was supposed to be simple and easy. The wraith ruined everything.

"Well, we're going to have to land and start looking for her. Otherwise she might be in for a world of trouble." Even in situations such as this, Rodney was always surprised when John used phrases like 'a world of trouble'.

The puddle jumper barely even thumped as it touched down on the grass. John left the cloak on, telling Keller that she should probably stay with the jumper. Keller agreed, and he made sure she had a side arm with her just in case. Her hands shook as she took it from him, and he grimaced. He would feel much more comfortable with this if Ronon and Teyla were with them.

((All right, I wanted to combine this and the next chapter, but then it would be over two thousand words, and I like to keep chapters at about one thousand words, or close to it. But this is good for you, because it means I'm uploading them both at the same time. More importantly, don't you hate when someone says "they had a plan!" and then you don't get to know what the plan was until the next chapter? Or, even worse, the chapter after that? I know I hate that.))


	6. Wraith Worship

((If I owned SGA there would be fewer babies. (One is one too many.)))

* * *

Kielle hadn't been expecting the wraith so soon, this was an ambush. She should have known, she should have realized that going to the same planet so regularly would get her caught. And now all she could do was run, run without stopping. It was lucky for her the wraith were taking extreme pleasure in their hunt, or else she would have been killed ages ago. They seemed so calm and calculated, appearing on the planet themselves rather than just scooping her up in one of the ships. She had run into one of them, stood only a few feet away with only a knife to protect herself. He had laughed, told her that they were going to take their time. That he was going to let her run because it made the game more entertaining for him. She hadn't bothered to make a comment on his arrogance, using it instead to get away.

They, of course, had the advantage. She could stop for a moment and catch her breath, but there was no way of really knowing how many there were and how close they were. She couldn't stop for long and with a near limitless supply of soldiers she was pretty well done for.

She had to stop, her legs ached and her chest burned. Kielle sank down against a tree, burying her head in her arms for a moment before realizing that that was a bad idea. Instead she leaned her head back against the bark, fighting to keep her breathing steady. They would know she had stopped and would be closing in, but she just needed a few minutes. It didn't make any sense; an entire hive had never landed on the planet just for her before, it wasn't how they worked. She was a sport, there was no fun in coming after her all at once. And only one thing had changed since before. There was no doubt that their sudden change in behavior was due to the Atlantis team.

She stood again, praying that her legs would stop shaking and carry her. But just as she left the safety of the tree she found herself face to face with the wraith that had started all this.

"Funny," he said as he approached her, "that I should be the one to kill you."

Her rage and fear drove her forward. She kicked off from the rock she was standing on, her knife outstretched. He easily jumped out of the way, but she had been counting on that. She spun on one heel like a dancer, flinging her knife towards his back. It struck, but she knew as he pulled it out that it would take him almost no time to heal. She turned away and began running again, giving her knife up for lost until it struck her in the side, sending her tumbling head over heels down a steep hill. The knife dug deeper into her side before releasing, spreading blood on the leaves and ground beneath her as she rolled. She finally came to a rest against a tree trunk, her breathing heavy and painful. Kielle clamped down on the wound, looking up at the wraith through unfocused eyes. She could hear him laughing, knew that he knew she was done for. The blood was pouring out of her fast, too fast. At this rate there would be no life left to feed on.

So that's not what this is about.

Kielle took as deep a breath as she could manage and stumbled to her feet, beginning to limp away from the hill. If she looked over her shoulder she could see the wraith still staring after her. Her vision was shaky, so she knew she was imagining the warped smile on his face.

Once he was out of sight she began to run again, falling against trees every now and then and using them to push herself forward, leaving a clear blood trail behind her. It didn't matter, they had the tracker. She was the metaphorical wounded animal. Well, the literal wounded animal as far as they were concerned. No matter where she ran, she was as good as trapped. She could hear them in her mind, taunting her; yet another side affect of the tracker. She hadn't admitted that to her father. Their voices echoed over each other, meant to disorient as well as scare her. She was not going to die, they told her, they were going to feed on her until nothing but a near empty husk remained, and then they would revive her. And then they would feed again. It was the worst torture they could inflict on her, because she knew what it led to: worship. The thought gave her an extra push to keep running, the pain in her side bothering her less when she realized that if she died of blood loss they couldn't do anything to bring her back.

John's team heard the wraith before they saw them, the closest thing there was to laughter for these creatures echoing through the trees. The hairs on the backs of their necks stood up on end.

"That can't be good."

"No, I would say not." John put on an extra burst of speed, running towards where the noise was coming from. He wanted desperately to shout for Kielle to find her, but knew that doing so would give away their position. Still, he figured that the wraith weren't laughing at puns, but at someone's agony.

"Don't let it be too late," no one else in the party heard him.

A few hundred feet away Kielle ran into another wraith, this one appearing to be younger than the first. She doubled back, pushing her legs to run faster than they ever had before. Her chest ached and her vision was blurry; she knew she wasn't getting enough oxygen and she was losing far too much blood. But that wouldn't matter if she didn't get away from these wraith. She turned a corner in the path, knowing she should take the time look around it first, be sure she wasn't running into a trap, but she was reluctant to slow down. She ran into the wraith, spinning away from him. His hand closed over her upper arm, pulling her backwards. The sudden stop in momentum forced her to the ground, the impact pushing the little air that remained in her lungs out in a sudden woosh even as she tried to cry out in pain. She looked up at the wraith standing over her, battling the dark shadows that threatened her status as conscious. "No," she managed to choke out, disappointment outweighing her fear. She had survived for so long, why did it have to end now?

* * *

((AH! EVERYONE'S GOING TO DIE! ))


	7. Wraith Worship Part II

((If I owned SGA I would be rich enough to buy cookies. And I'm lacking in the cookie department right now. Mostly because I'm lazy... I guess what I'm trying to say is: If I owned SGA I could pay someone to go get me cookies.))

* * *

Ronon was getting more and more annoyed. He was happy to accompany Teyla to visit with her people, but it was quickly becoming clear that she was stalling around. They had been wandering up and down the village for a little over two hours. There wasn't that much interesting going on in to warrant the number of times they had walked back and forth. He was beginning to regret coming with her. He kept quiet a few more minutes before, finally, "Teyla, what is really going on here?"

"What do you mean, Ronon?" She didn't look away from the display of necklaces she had stopped to consider.

"Look, if you guys are just trying to get me out of Atlantis to take my mind of Kielle, you've succeeded. Otherwise, I don't know why-" He cut off when Teyla turned from the stand, continuing down the road. He followed behind, convinced that she was going to tell him the truth as long as he didn't push it.

John had told her not to tell Ronon what was really happening until after they were all safely back at Atlantis, but it was too late for Ronon to interfere with their plan now, surely it would be safe to tell him? Still, she hesitated, leading him further from the village before opening her mouth to begin the explanation.

"John and Rodney asked me to keep you distracted, today."

"Why? They planning another surprise party?"

She smiled, "No." She sighed, her shoulders sinking. "Ronon, before I tell you, you must understand that we were doing what we thought was best, given the circumstances-"

"Which was?" All humor was gone from his voice.

"Rodney and Keller figured out a way to remove the wraith transmitter from Kielle." She had expected Ronon to say something along the lines of 'what are we waiting for', but when it didn't come she realized he knew something wasn't right.

"And?" He prompted when she hesitated.

With a sigh, she began the long explanation, "It was John's comment that did it, apparently. At first Rodney was focused on removing the transmitter, but then he realized that that would be impossible without, well, killing Kielle. He started focusing on a way to keep Kielle alive by," here she hesitated again, trying to remember exactly how McKay had explained it, "overloading her nervous system before shutting the transmitter down. He figured that the increase would offset the decrease enough to keep her alive."

His hands had clenched themselves into fists, and were shaking at his sides. "So Keller is going to drug her?" His voice told Teyla he already suspected the answer.

"Unfortunately, any drugs that will boost her nervous system to the required extent would also require her to be unconscious."

"And there's a problem with that?"

"McKay believes that the transmitter will only be able to be deactivated if she is fully aware."

"Why?"

"Something to do with her body still needing to be in control when the transmitter shuts off. Apparently it has grown-"

"Grown?" He had already known it was organic, but hadn't though about the fact that it was growing.

"Yes, it has grown in such a way as to take some control of her nervous system from her, acting as some sort of middle man, as Dr. McKay put it. If she were in any kind of drug induced sleep when the device was shut off, there is a good chance her nervous system wouldn't have any idea how to react. And might shut down or, even more likely, it might 'cling to the transmitter.'"

Ronon's jaw clenched, and he asked the next question through his teeth, "And the only way to overload her nervous system without knocking her out is?"

Teyla didn't want to answer, but she had come this far and knew she might as well take the leap, "the wraith enzyme."

Ronon took it surprisingly well. He didn't kill her, so that was a plus. "So let me get this straight," his voice was low, deadly, "you are distracting me so that John, Rodney, and Dr. Keller can use the wraith enzyme on my daughter without me interfering?"

Teyla decided not to mention that Todd would be present, that Rodney believed he was the only one that could deactivate the device. She nodded, "Ronon, please understand, we would not expose- Ronon, wait!"

Ronon turned and took off running back towards the gate, swearing at the entire team under his breath, ignoring Teyla's screams to come back.

The darkness that had overwhelmed her began to fade, the world coming back in surprisingly sharp contrast, including the pain in her side and the pain in her back from where she had fallen. And faces, John and Rodney and the wraith, all three of them looking down at her, John and Rodney apparently concerned while the wraith looked, as all wraith looked to her, hungry. Wraith worshipers. She didn't want to believe it about someone her father liked, but she also couldn't deny that they were working with a wraith and not being fed on, not trying to kill him. Dad must not know, he would never... She felt sick, bile rising in the back of her throat.

"Kielle, can you stand?" John's voice was kind, but it grated against her ears. She wanted to say no, to curl up in a ball and never try to stand up or move or think ever again. It was too much. After ten years it was finally too much. She let herself sink back into the grass, her eyes sliding closed again, but only for a few seconds. John reached down and grasped her shoulder, shaking it slightly to wake her up, "Kielle, I'm sorry, but we need to move," He gripped her hand, helping pull her to her feet. To her chagrin her legs shook and she began to fall again, this time caught by John. This was the ultimate insult. He was a wraith worshiper, and she needed his help to stand?

"No!" she pushed off of his chest, taking a few shaky steps backwards before catching herself. She tried to run, but that was beyond her at this point, her head swam and she began to fall.

"Kielle!" John grabbed her around the waist, gasping as she twisted in his grip, clawing at his arm. Tears were pouring down her face at this point, her voice coming in ragged screams. John was beginning to worry about the wraith hearing her. Granted, they already knew where she was, but they didn't need to know that John and the rest of them were with her.

"I can calm her." Todd's voice came as a surprise, but John didn't hesitate before shaking his head. Todd was only there because Rodney had worked out that having a wraith to disable the device might actually be the only way, that there might be some aspect of the neural interface present. John hadn't been comfortable risking it, if Rodney was right and they did need the wraith present he would have to let her and Ronon down again.

She broke free again, this time stepping around John, headed to the trees only a few feet away. Todd moved in front of her, pressing his hand to her chest. She screamed, and he let go, catching her before she fell and handing her off to John.

"I told you not-!"

"We would never have gotten her out alive if she continued to fight like that, she has already lost too much blood." John hated to agree, but he knew Todd was right.

Ronon was definitely never going to forgive them for this one.

John scooped her up, into his arms. This time she didn't try to resist, deciding to hell with it, if the wraith wanted her they could have her, she didn't care anymore. John half-ran to the jumper, following Rodney into the concealed opening. "Rodney! Get us out of here!"

Rodney didn't even hesitate, moving to the controls as if that had been his plan all along. He was no where near the pilot that John was, but he could fly the puddle jumper in a straight line off the planet, and he began to do so. John put Kielle onto one of the benches gently, stepping out of Keller's way. She was immediately at her side, taking her pulse and checking her pupils. Her pules was weak, her breathing shallow, and she showed signs of going into shock. And it was no wonder, she had lost a lot of blood, too much blood.

* * *

((So that's their plan, hopefully it makes sense. I actually wanted to combine this with the past two chapters, too, but I wanted to keep it shorter. So three chapters in five minutes. For the sake of my ego I'll pretend you're excited.))


	8. The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

((If I owned SGA, Atlantis would be in the Unicorn Galaxy. (You get it, because they're both mythical horses. XD)))

* * *

Keller shook Kielle's shoulder gently, knowing that she had to be awake if their plan was to work. "Kielle?"

Kielle tried to push her hand off, sliding away from her on the bench even as she paled in pain. "Get away from me!" For someone that seemed so weak at the moment, her voice was strong, angry.

"Kielle! We're trying to help you!" Why was it that every time they tried to help people, they just ended up getting yelled at, if not shot at. Couldn't someone just once be grateful for the help and cooperate?

"John, they're shooting at us!"

The jumper was in chaos. John let out an angry sigh, taking over the controls from Rodney. "We're cloaked! How are they-" He realized the answer before he finished the question. "Doc, we don't have a choice, we have to get that damn tracker out of her now, before they shoot us out of the sky."

Keller nodded, "Kielle, listen to me, these are not exactly the ideal circumstances..." Kielle wasn't listening to her, her eyes stared past her, over her shoulder. Keller looked in the same direction and found Todd on the opposite side of the jumper. She sighed, finally understanding what the problem was. "Kielle, please, listen to me for a second." Her voice was almost begging Kielle to listen to her, even as she tried to sound authoritative.

"I'm listening," she still didn't look away from Todd, betrayal in her eyes.

"Todd-"

"_Todd_?"

"It was John's idea." A wraith weapon hit against the ship, making the entire jumper shake. Kielle grimaced. "Point is, we have a sort of... alliance with him."

"Wraith worshipers." Kielle finally said the thought that had been foremost in her mind since she saw them with the wraith.

"No." Keller was more adamant on this one, "No, we are not wraith worshipers, believe me, it's a very hesitant alliance. But we needs his help to-"

"Incoming!" John warned, moments before another blast shook the ship.

"We aren't going to last if it keeps up like this."

"I'm aware of that, Rodney. If the cloak isn't doing any good, can you give me a shield?"

"Yeah," Rodney sat back down in the copilot's seat, pressing a few buttons. Almost instantaneously the jumper calmed down, the weapons hitting off the shield as opposed to the jumper. The darts began to fall back.

"They're getting cocky, think we can't do anything to get the tracker out without taking her back to Atlantis." A tight smile spread across John's face. "Rodney, take this again."

"But-"

"They're not shooting at us anymore, just get us a little deeper into space, we want a head start if things get ugly."

Rodney nodded, swallowing hard.

Meanwhile, Kielle was confused. "How can you work with a wraith so willingly?"

"Believe me," John said, coming into the back of the jumper, "It wasn't our first choice."

"But it's the only way, the tracker has a neural interface, it can only be shut down by a wraith." Kielle sat up, pushing Keller's arm aside when she tried to to stop her. Turning her head, she caught John's eyes. He was surprised, for someone who should by all means be unconscious, she was very far from it.

"You trust him?"

John considered the question. He thought about lying, telling her that he completely trusted Todd, but figured he owed her the truth."He saved my life, once. I trust him as much as I could trust a wraith."

Kielle nodded once, looking to Keller and then looking to Todd. "All right, let's do this then." John, Keller, and Rodney were surprised that she agreed so readily where only a few moments ago she had been screaming at them to get away from her. The way Kielle saw it, Ronon would never put his life into the hands of someone he didn't trust, and would definitely never serve under a man he didn't trust. And that trust was enough for her, even in this case. She refused to entertain the notion that Ronon might be a worshiper.

Keller hesitated for a moment in surprise before nodding and reaching for her bag, "All right, before we can do anything, I'm going to need to patch up this wound on your side, you're losing too much blood. In an ideal-"

"Well we don't have ideal." Kielle shrugged her jacket off and laid back down, letting Keller pull up the bottom of her shirt enough to get at the wound.

Keller didn't argue with her, "John, I'll need the med kit from beneath the seat at the back of the jumper." He handed it to her, and she pulled out a long roll of bandages as well as a small bag with thick black thread and a curved needle. "Under normal circumstances I would give you some sort of anesthetic, but I don't have all of my kit here-"

"It's fine, I can handle it."

Keller finally said what she had realized as soon as they had entered orbit, "I don't have anything to give you for when we take the tracker out either, I have sedatives, but you'll have to be awake." Her voice was quiet, and she wasn't sure anyone had heard it until Kielle sighed.

"Well, we don't have ideal."

Keller nodded and began cleaning the cut in her side. "Well," Kielle began through gritted teeth, "at least they've stopped shooting at us."

Rodney snorted, "Yeah, small miracles." The bitterness in his tone was unmistakable. Lucky for Kielle, the cut was relatively clean and didn't take long to stitch up. Keller waited on the bandages, knowing that they would just be in the way.

"John."

"Yeah?" John turned from the controls at the sound of Keller's voice.

"The enzyme. It's all at the medical base." Silence filled the jumper again.

"Enzyme?"

"Long story short, there's an enzyme that the wraith inject into the body before they feed in order to- No, that's going to be too long. Point is, we need the enzyme if you want to survive the surgery."

"Would it be possible to extract the enzyme from me?"

John was surprised at Todd's offer, looking to the wraith with the question in his eyes. Finally, Todd gave him the real reason for his willingness to help them. "The wraith that controls that hive is a great rival of mine." John snorted. It sounded like they were rival football teams with the way Todd said it.

"I don't have syringes, I wasn't prepared for this." Keller was beginning to feel like she was about to have a mental breakdown, and she wasn't even the one bleeding.

"There is another delivery system," Todd reminded them.

"No," John's answer was immediate.

"Uh, Sheppard, I think they might be getting ready to shoot at us again."

"It might be the only way, John."

Kielle leaned up on one elbow, drawing their attention, "So let me get this straight, to get this thing out of my back he," here she pointed at Todd, "has to feed on me just so I'll survive it?"

"Unless we can find another way to get the enzyme..."

Kielle looked at the wraith with disgust very plainly showing on her face while another part of her, the rational part, fought with her. _They're risking their life for me, and if this tracker isn't removed then they will die and it will be my fault. I'll have killed someone again._ It was the guilt that finally made her nod.

"All right."

"No, I-"

"It's my choice, John." The determination in her eyes so closely matched the determination he had seen a hundred times in Ronon that he gave in, pulling his hand gun just in case. He nodded to Todd, who didn't hesitate before approaching Kielle, pressing his hand against her chest. She tightened her fists until her fingertips turned white, her entire body shaking, her teeth clenched against the scream that was fighting it's way up her throat. He only took a few months, stopping before John had to say a word and stepping back.

Ronon was _never_ going to forgive them for this.

"John, all my surgical instruments are-"

"Here," In a move John had seen Ronon pull about a thousand times, Kielle retrieved a knife from where it had been hiding on her person.

"I can't use-"

John handed her the bottle of alcohol from the med kit. "It's going to have to do, Keller, we're running out of time."

Keller grimaced, but sterilized the knife all the same while John helped Kielle roll onto her stomach.

"You know, I had a good friend a few years back who ended up giving birth in my car. I had to hold her hand, if you need-"

"I'll be fine."

"All right."

Keller bit her lip, "Ready?" Kielle nodded once, and Keller pushed the tip of her knife into her skin just below her neck. Kielle whimpered, grabbing John's offered arm and squeezing, her nails biting into his skin.

* * *

((This chapter is a bit longer than my other ones, but not so long I felt the need to cut it up. I hope that anyone reading this with any idea about medical stuff doesn't kill me, though I'm sure you have every right.))


	9. Often go awray

((If I owned any part of the Stargate canon there would have only ever been the one spin off.))

* * *

The gate seemed to take forever to activate. When it finally did he wasted no time going through, barely waiting to give Weir the time to lower the shield.

"Ronon?"

"What the hell were you thinking?" Ronon had been angry before, but she had never heard him yell like this.

"Ronon, please understand-"

"No." He took a few deep breaths, trying desperately to calm himself. Weir's fear was plain to see on her face. "No, I will not understand. Dial the planet, I'm going after my daughter."

Weir hesitated only a moment before turning to the man behind the controls and nodding. He began dialing as she turned back to Ronon. His chest was heaving, there was a vein pulsing on the side of his forehead and neck, and his eyes looked as if they could kill. She had never seen anyone so angry.

The seventh chevron was dialed and... "I can't get a lock."

"Try again." his voice left no room for argument. The gate began dialing again, and again failed to activate.

"Again!" Panic had joined the rage in his eyes.

He didn't ask him to try a fourth time, knowing that if it didn't work then... Weir was beginning to get worried too. "Ronon, if the gate on their end is active-"

"We have no way to get in contact with Sheppard, and it probably means the wraith are attacking."

"Ronon, I-"

"Don't you dare apologize." Ronon left the gate room, silence echoing after his footsteps.

Keller felt like they should have accounted for this. Maybe they had, maybe they had and the plan had just gotten so screwed up that she no longer remembered what their original plan was. The pain and exhaustion were overcoming Kielle, and she was beginning to fade from consciousness. Todd was finding it difficult to shut off the tracker. The less conscious she was, the more the tracker took control, hanging on tighter and tighter.

"Kielle, you have to stay awake."

"Oh, but I was just thinking that a nap would be incredibly nice right now."

"Doc, do you have anything-" Another blast shook the jumper, getting past the shields.

"I have a stimulant in the med kit, but it might kill her."

"If you don't use it, we're all going to die. Better just me than all of you, too."

Keller sighed, "I am never coming off world with you guys for something like this again." She could barely watch as she pushed the stimulant into Kielle's veins, expecting some sort of violent reaction, and then, probably, Kielle's death. Instead she heard a groan, but it wasn't Kielle's. At this point she was drawing blood from where her nails were digging into John's arm. Almost immediately the tracker began to power down and the attacks on the ship became more violent.

"Rodney! Switch to cloak!" Rodney hit the required buttons, still surprised that he hadn't managed to crash the jumper. Sure, they were in space, but he was also that bad a driver in his mind. "Get us closer to the planet, to the gate." The wraith guns quickly stopped hitting them, no longer able to see where they were.

Finally the tracker powered off. Keller leaned in to investigate how it was attached to her spine. As far as she could tell it was interwoven with the vertebrae. No wonder Kielle was constantly stretching her back out, if it had been left to grow much longer the tracker might very well have crushed her spine.

"Is there a way to pull the tracker off without having to cut each strand individually?"

"I am afraid there is not."

"All right then. This should be fun." Keller leaned over the tracker, beginning to cut at the tendrils. It was slow going, but as she began to cut at them the others began to retract towards the device as if to protect it. It only took fifteen minutes or so to cut through them, less than a quarter of the time she expected.

"The wraith are leaving," Rodney announced, "It seems that the gate has even shut off."

"Get us in range and dial Atlantis. Without the tracker we should be safe."

Rodney nodded. Within minutes he was dialing the gate and radioing ahead for a med team. Keller had begun to close up the cut from the surgery, but she also knew that to properly stop the bleeding she would need an actual infirmary.

The med team was waiting along with Teyla. Keller immediately took Kielle to the infirmary, calling for monitors and drugs Kielle didn't know anything about. Slowly she slipped unconscious, finally confident that it was safe to do so.

"Teyla, where's Ronon?" Teyla fell into step beside John as he headed towards his quarters. He had to shower and change, get the blood off of him, preferably before he met up with Ronon.

"He is on the south pier."

"The south pier? What is he doing there?"

"I may have made a mistake. I told him while we were still off world what was really going on, and he became very upset."

"Well, yeah, that was why we decided not to tell him in the first place."

"When we returned to the city he ran off. No one has seen him since."

"Well, if he's near an active intercom, he'll know we're back." John stopped outside his door.

"The med team said you never showed."

"No, we ran into a bit of trouble."

"But you managed to remove the tracker?"

"Yeah, but definitely not under ideal circumstances."

"Then perhaps Ronon will forgive you, forgive all of us."

"Well, let's just say I'm not sure I want to spar with him tomorrow. He's going to be angry, Teyla, one way or the other."

"I fear that you are right. Perhaps we will know more tonight. I am sure he will show up in the infirmary to be with Kielle."


	10. Ohana

((If I owned Stargate Atlantis there would be more Starwhales. (First one to name the reference wins.)))

* * *

John didn't wait for Ronon to show up in the infirmary. He gave him a couple of hours, but when he still didn't show up and his life sign still hadn't moved from the pier, John decided to take the long walk through the city to the pier. He took the transporter to get as close as possible, but he still had another hour's walk ahead of him. His footsteps were the only ones within ear shot. In truth, he was probably miles from anyone else. "No one to hear me scream," he muttered as he opened the door to the south pier. Ronon stood down towards the end, his arms crossed and his back to John. Sheppard wasn't even sure he had heard the door open until he had stepped out, onto the pier and found himself pushed against a wall.

Ronon pinned him by the throat to the cold metal wall of the city, holding him a few inches above the ground. John let out a surprised yell, "Ronon, let me explain."

"There was no reason for you to do what you did. You went behind my back, Sheppard."

"Look, I'm sorry, but we thought-"

"I don't care what you thought! You had no right to put my daughter through that!"

John was finding it hard to breathe, worried that Ronon might actually kill him, whether he meant to or not. "She's fine, Ronon! I talked to Keller myself!"

Ronon dropped him, not offering to help him up the way he would if they were sparring. John decided to stay down, figuring that if he tried to get up Ronon would just put him on the ground again, if not in the ocean. "There were a million things that could have gone wrong. She could have been killed. You all could have been killed!"

Something clicked in John's mind, something he hadn't expected. Slowly, he climbed to his feet and then, quietly, "Is that why you're upset?"

Ronon was silent.

"Ronon," His name came out as more of a groan. It never ceased to amaze John. "You are a part of this team, of this expedition, and you're one of the best friends I have ever had. Hell, I like you better than I like my brother."

Ronon's voice was flat when he responded: "I've met your brother, that's not saying much."

John snorted, he had him there. "We risked our lives for Kielle, yes, and we would do it again, just like you've done countless times for us." Neither man was very good with emotions, and while John's speech left much to be desired in terms of what he really wanted to say, Ronon got the message.

"I'm still angry with you."

"Yeah. Hey, uh," John scratched the back of his head, "I have to help McKay with something tomorrow, I'm not going to be able to spar with you like we planned, sorry about that." His voice held no traces of an apology.

Ronon chuckled, but still didn't look at him.

"Kielle is in the infirmary, Keller told me she's stable, that she should be fine so long as we give her time to heal."

Ronon nodded once and then, just as John turned to go back inside, "Thanks, John."

"Anytime."

Once the pier door had closed behind him, John sighed. Ronon's sense of honor made him who he was, but it was times like this John would have liked to rip that part out of him. He hated that Ronon still couldn't consider himself part of the team, that he would risk his life for John, McKay, Rodney, Teyla, and the rest of Atlantis without thinking twice, but hated so much when they did the same for him.

As he made his way back to his quarters for some sleep he had been missing out on for far too long, John couldn't help but wonder what was going to come next. Kielle had been running even longer than Ronon had, living normally again wasn't going to come naturally to her. Even Ronon was still, in a way, doing what he had done while running. He was fighting the wraith, but now he had a team to help him. John couldn't see Ronon letting Kielle become a warrior. That was, Ronon had told him once when they were comparing Earth to Seteda, not the way the Setedan army worked; it was all men.

When he finally reached his door he found Teyla waiting for him.

"Been waiting long?"

"No, only a few moments."

"What can I do for ya?" He was exhausted, and hoped that it would only take a few seconds.

"I wanted to apologize, for telling Ronon-"

"Teyla, don't worry about it. Him and I had a nice conversation, he's over it."

"You are a bad liar, John."

"Yeah well, the point still stands. Don't worry about it, he was going to have to find out sooner or later."

"Very well. Good night, John."

"'Night" John didn't even bother to take his shoes off before falling onto his bed and he barely had time to curl around his pillow in his favorite sleeping position before was unconscious.

It was well after midnight when Ronon finally made his way into the main part of the city, and most of the expedition members were asleep. He only passed two people in the hall, neither of them saying much of anything to him. He lingered in the door of the infirmary for a moment before going in. Kielle's bed was the only one occupied, and it wasn't hard to spot. A heart monitor next to her beeped regularly, while an I.V. hooked into the crook of her elbow dripped with a surprising volume. She was laying on her right side, and it took him a minute to figure out why, but it wouldn't make sense for her to be lying on her back, and he could see bandages on her left side where the white shirt had rolled up a few inches. He stood there for a few minutes, watching her face. She looked so much like Melena it hurt him. The hair, the shape of her nose and the curve of her jaw. It hadn't hit him yet, he hadn't realized that he had at least part of his family back. He was in shock, a little bit.

"Hey, Ronon." Keller's voice sounded awfully small, and he could see that she was ashamed of what she had done. He looked at her briefly before returning his eyes to Kielle.

"How is she?"

"She's going to be all right," Keller assured him, "She's tough. She reminds me a lot of you, actually."

Ronon didn't respond, and Keller decided to pretend she had imagined the flash of emotion in his eyes.

"Look, I'm sorry about the way we did this, it wasn't right."

"Jennifer," It was the first time she remembered him using her first name, "I'm not angry with you guys."

"You're not?" Now she was the one in shock.

"I don't agree with what you did, but she's my daughter. If helping her means teaming up with a wraith, I'd do it."

Keller sighed, "I thought you might, but we didn't want to risk it."

"I should have gone with you. I should have been included in this. That's the part that makes me angry. I should have been the one to help her."

"Ronon," Keller's voice was soft, barely sounding above the beeping of the heart monitor, "you aren't alone. You and Kielle, you have something of a family here if you want it."

Ronon didn't respond. Keller squeezed his shoulder before leaving him alone.

* * *

((Ohana means family, and family means no one gets left behind, or forgotten. Aw, poor Ronon, bein' all distant and stuff. I don't know for sure why this was always the impression I got off him, but I never pictured Ronon as being able to accept that the people in Atlantis liked him enough to do stuff like this for him.))


	11. I am Really Bad at Chapter Titles

((If I owned Stargate Atlantis the episode titles would be awful))

* * *

John had thought that after how exhausted he had felt he would need at least a good twelve hours of sleep. He woke up after seven, feeling surprisingly rested and, even though it was his day off, unable to go back to sleep. Unfortunately, he knew why he was awake. He had conditioned his body to wake up at eight on his days off specifically so that he could spar with Ronon. It had become, as McKay had called it to bother him, their "bonding time." Without anything else to do, and figuring it couldn't hurt to watch, John climbed out bed and changed his clothes, headed for the sparring room. Ronon was already there, fighting with a marine.

Ronon was winning. The marine went down not soon after John walked into the room. Ronon looked up at him and smiled, handing him the staff the marine had dropped.

John knew it was a bad idea, he could make a list of injuries that he would have within the first five minutes of fighting. Might as well let him blow the steam off now, if I let it go any longer I will end up in the ocean. It was a threat they often used against each other. He reached out and took the staff, not liking the smile on Ronon's face at all.

They started slow, the only noise the bang of staff on staff, circling each other. Then, Ronon leaped forward, his staff crashing against John's three or four times before he made contact. He nearly yelled as the staff hit his jaw, rebounding with a loud crack. He could feel several teeth that were loosened by the blow. Ronon took a few steps back, a wide smile on his face.

John rubbed his jaw for a moment, tasting blood, then straightened. Ronon attacked hard and fast. John managed to catch most of his attacks, but another hit made it through, smacking him across the chest and knocking the wind out of him. He hit the ground, fighting to catch his breath. Normally Ronon would have helped him up, but this time he moved forward, falling to one knee beside John and pressing his staff against his throat. They stayed like that for several minutes before Ronon smiled, stood, and offered a hand to help John up.

"We're good then?" John asked, surprised that that was all it had taken. He grasped Ronon's hand and used it to pull himself up.

Ronon used the leverage to flip him over his back.

"Yeah, we're good."

John lay moaning on the floor for a moment, regretting his decision to spar more than he had ever regretted anything in his life.

"All right," he said when he finally regained his ability to breathe, "I'm glad we're good."

Ronon offered his hand again, but John decided to get up on his own this time.

"Look, Ronon-"

"We're good, John." Ronon clapped him on the shoulder. Before John could open his mouth to say anything else they were interrupted by a sudden scream from the direction of the infirmary. John reacted first, getting less than a second head start, Ronon quickly catching up to him and passing him. Still, they reached the infirmary at about the same time. It was, as they had both suspected, Kielle screaming. She thrashed on the bed, her left hand coming up in a fist and crashing against the side of Keller's face. She grunted in surprise and called for a sedative. When she moved to take it from the nurse Kielle's eyes locked onto Ronon's. "Dad!"

As she called for him Keller sunk the needle into her thigh. Ronon pushed past the medical personnel as well as the security personnel that stood between him and Kielle, but by the time he reached her she had already sunk down against the pillows, the sedative coursing through her veins.

The activity in the room didn't slow down, and it didn't take long to figure out why. When she had been fighting, Kielle had torn her stitches as well as further widened the wound. Blood soaked the sheets she lay on. An alarm began to sound, alerting Keller to a drop in Kielle's blood pressure.

"Get her to surgery,"

"Keller, what's-"

"I'm sorry, Ronan, I don't have time." Keller rushed after her patient, leaving Ronon standing in the middle of an almost empty infirmary.

John half expected him to run again, to disappear to one of the less explored areas of the city. Instead, Ronon paced.

* * *

((Wow, bits and pieces of this sort of read like a John/Ronon ship... Is that just me? Say it's just me. I WANT RONON FOR MYSELF!))


End file.
